Writinga book is a very disturbing
experience. I am now realizing how little I know and how much I have been
talking about it. Trying to put down on paper the words of my reflections
makes me feel a stark sense of inadequacy.

There is so much of You I would like to tell people,
particularly those tender-skinned newly born ones, who are just stepping
out in the time of Your life. There is so much confusion handed out as spiritual
instruction  I don't want to be just another midway barker touting
a sideshow event. I want to offer positives and principles and, Oh Lord,
how I want my book to be a new book.

I am so greedy! I don't want to say an old thing a
new way, I want to say a new thing! Where this is an appetite glorifying
to You, please open up ways for it to be satisfied. Where it is just another
aspect of my own ego trying to look holy, please dismiss it. Please cram
my barefooted thoughts into the shoes of Your discipline, that I might run
effectively.

I pray in the name of our Lord, Jesus
Christ.

Amen.

Most Christians testify to their early Christian
experiences with terms only slightly less rhapsodic than

Page 35

those describing true millennial joy. There is a lilting account
of exuberant security, welcoming fellowship, unbounded love, and instant
maturity. If this has been your experience in the Lord, I honestly praise
His name for His dealings with you and ask your patient indulgence for my
account of a different experience.

My newly committed life was one of disturbing, even
though sanctified, confusion. I knew more fears, more self-doubt, and more
irritation than I had ever known. I made more serious errors in my first
few weeks as a proclaiming Christian than I had in my whole history of unabashed
carnality.

One of the surest proofs of the invincibility of
Christianity is that it survived my first five years of active involvement!
Instead of leaping daintily in gazellelike surefootedness, I stumbled two
steps backward for every three steps forward.

I felt no sense of direction and no clearly defined
purpose. My feelings of joy were as changeable as my testimony, which knew
daily adjustments to the circumstances under which I was to give
it.

As for love, that highly touted affection that was
supposed to drench my new being, I found no honest indication of it, either
from me or to me. My new Christian friends welcomed me into the family with
terms and tones I didn't understand, which reminded me of a particularly
confusing phase of my actual childhood.

I was the only child of parents who came from large
families. We were the only branch of either lineage which did not live in
its native environs of Alabama or Oklahoma. As a result, I grew up thinking
Christmas

Page 36

meant Alabama and Thanksgiving meant Oklahoma, because that was
when and where the clans gathered.

I felt that family meant a house full of strangers
bearing not only gifts, but kisses and hugs and double names all beginning
with aunt, uncle, or cousin. The most impressive names were those that bore
variations sounding like physical phenomena: "This is your second cousin
once removed," or "This is your fourth cousin on your mother's side." I
visualized cousins hanging like appendages to my parents' history and wondered
why I was supposed to love these vaguely familiar creatures.

Family-type people talked a lot about incidents that
were strange to me. Family-type people were often excited about special events
that occurred in that mysterious time before I was born. I became convinced
that I had entered the scene after the best part was over, but felt I had
gotten myself born at the earliest possible opportunity and resented any
feeling of guilt on account of my tardiness. None of this put me at
ease.

False Start

My response to my Christian family was much the same.
I was slow in picking up their phrases and embarrassed that the accent of
my old way of life colored my speech. There is a hymn that includes the phrase,
"Jesus calls us o'er the tumult." Well, I had difficulty in hearing the voice
of Jesus over the tumult of the Christian community!

God's plan and direction are usually quite simple,
but we Christians are wonderfully imaginative. If we

Page 37

can find a way to complicate God's plan, we are not only willing
to do it, we are also eager to teach others those complications. I feel great
sympathy for the spiritual fledgling trying to piece together God's guidance
from the feverish counsel of those of us advising him.

Years ago, as my ears were bombarded by phrases, my
newly committed heart was not warmed. I longed for love to happen to me,
even while I tried to deal with my very active resentment. Why was no one
interested in the things that interested me? And, if God really loved me,
why had He told everyone else exactly what I should do and not revealed a
whiff of direction to me personally?

I was urged to get into a church, join in a fellowship
and spend a significant part of my busy mornings in quiet time. I tried an
early morning quiet time, only to find it considerably quieter than expected.
Napping with my nose pressed into an open Bible was not honestly
productive!

Following my usual pattern of rejecting what I did
not understand, I fought each suggested principle, and lived to regret each
battle.

I substituted self-gratifying daydreaming for prayer.
I found the Bible dull and confusing in the few haphazard attempts I made
at study, so I eliminated that practice. I considered myself above the need
for church involvement because my relationship with Christ was
unique.

Having dispensed with the organized church, I moved
on to check off the whole Christian community. I didn't need any of them.
I was secure in the

Page 38

Lord. He would lead me, and the straitlaced Christians could eat
my dust as I zoomed past them.

I did not zoom ahead, however I skidded across the
track and almost out of the race. I didn't know what hurt me. I was lonely
without spiritual fellowship and totally unequipped for the battle I found
myself fighting.

Yes, a real battle! There is a mighty conflict still
going on. Satan, who fought so hard keep the Christian from becoming a Christian,
will fight even harder to render the Christian ineffective. I learned the
truth of Galatians 5:17 before I ever read the verse. The flesh is at
war with the Spirit. I needed help. I was taking myself right out of the
race, almost before it began!

Realizing I was floundering into defeat by trying
to live the Christian life all by myself, I went back to the dynamics of
honest prayer, back to the vulnerability of real fellowship. I learned that
I could hear the deep, God-based love in my Christian family when I stopped
stiff-arming everyone with criticism. I was about to set my foot upon the
hallowed ground of true beginnings.

Tentative Steps

When we relish the authenticity of our own personhood
under God, we allow the authenticity of others. That's the beginning place
 the authenticity of the person whom Christ has
created.

If any man be in Christ he is a newly created
being....

See 2 Corinthians 5:17

Page 39

That's the challenge: risking all on the validity
of God's bequest of personal identity. It is a risk. There would be no victory
without the possibility of defeat. The action of life must begin in a world
where loss is possible.

There are a lot of frustrated Christians who are left
stranded in the delivery room because the great generative power of God has
not been applied to the first timid steps of beginnings.

When I was in high school, one of the few group activities
approved by teenager and parent alike was ice skating. Winter in Texas amounted
to only a slight chill in our December sunbathing, but the ice-skating rink
offered us a glimpse of winter, synthetic as it was. I loved it!

It was all very colorful and romantic. The blaring
recorded music drenched us with melody as the lights on the rink changed
to various moods.

True to my role of class clown, I hobbled down the
steps to the ice, arms flailing the air in exaggerated precariousness, my
weak ankles teetering back and forth over the slender blades.

Once upon the ice, I abandoned myself to the heights
of my skating ambition not to fall down. In order to satisfy this challenge,
I spent my time skimming the edge of the rink, crossing hand over hand along
the rail.

Following this procedure for all my skating dates
and parties, I realized my one ambition  I never fell down.
My friends flitted across the ice. The boys etched deep, icy patterns with
their skates, while girls twirled and posed. They called out to me to join
them.

Page 40

I never left my course. They might be having more
fun, but they had to fall down every once in a while. My record was perfect!
No skating, no falling!

Sooner or later, the Christian realizes his heavenly
Father did not fit him just to learn the route along the rail. Sooner or
later we are affected by the external goal expressed in the joy of other
Christians, and by the internal goal of the Holy Spirit.

We don't want to give up going to the rink, so we
ask, "Where do I go from here?" God has an honest answer. It requires that
we brave a new beginning.